


A Modern Pygmalion

by supercalvin



Series: 13 Nights of Halloween [11]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Frankenstein, Frankenstein AU, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2533364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercalvin/pseuds/supercalvin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor Arthur Pendragon has been working on his theory of reanimation for seven years and now he is ready to try his theory on human flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Modern Pygmalion

**Author's Note:**

> Mary Shelley is rolling over in her grave, but at least I know that I am changing her original meaning (and at least I know that Frankenstein is the freaking doctor and not The Creature). I adore Mary Shelley because she is the Mother of Science Fiction (Hear that? A woman created the Sci-Fi genre, so stop saying Sci-Fi is only for boys).
> 
> For WizardKnight who prompted a Frankenstein AU (Thank you because I needed one more fic to write and I was stuck. You are a miracle, my friend).

Doctor Arthur Pendragon had been working on his theory of reanimation for seven years now. People said he was trying to be God and fellow scientists said that he was working toward magic. They weren’t wrong. They believed a single deity had created humans, but Doctor Pendragon had other ideas, ones that were too radical to discuss in private society. So he kept his scientific beliefs to himself. And on the latter account…there was no denying one of the books he had used in his research was labeled as a tome of witchcraft and sorcery.

At the end of seven years, he had regenerated cells in a small petri dish. Then he moved onto larger things. He revived a white rat that was still living, strong and well, who he named Gaius. Then he decided he had to try his theory on something much bigger. He had to try something that would be revolutionary. He needed a human.

It took Arthur an entire year to write the formula and design his entire experiment. If he was seen as a socially inept in polite society, now he was seen as a hermit. When he wasn’t working, he was avoiding social dinners and his father’s reprimands.

The woman that his father had planned for him to marry left and Arthur was grateful. He and Morgana would not have worked well in a marriage. Arthur was married to his work.

The only person he saw was his butler, Leon, who made sure Arthur was taking care of himself. He never called Arthur crazed or told him his work wasn’t worth the effort. Arthur had never appreciated a human being more than he appreciated Leon and his patience.

There was storm outside his castle-like house when he finally finished his work. It was raining so hard that as soon as Arthur stepped outside he was drenched from head to toe. He reveled in the natural occurrence of water falling from the sky and thought of his own work as lightning filled the black sky.

He had to work quickly when he finally decided to initiate his experiment. To compose a human being he would need to do it in less than a week, or else the formulas would fail. Arthur thought if God could create the world in its entirety in seven days than he could manage one human being in the same amount of time.

The body was composed in six days, and on the seventh day he set the magical stone into the creature’s chest. The heart shaped crystal was filled with a bright blue gas. Others might have called it magic, but Arthur liked to think of it as an advanced science that the world wasn’t ready to accept. Some called him a mad heretic. He thought of himself as a revolutionary.

He started the hydroelectric pump, sending lightning through the creature’s body. The body convulsed on the operating table and Arthur held his breath as every hair on his body stood on end from the static. He turned off the pump and the room was eerily quiet, Arthur’s ears still ringing from the zaps of electricity. Warily, he stepped up to the operating table.

The creature’s eyes opened.

“It worked.” Doctor Pendragon whispered, his heart pumping as fast as if he was the one who had been electrocuted. “It worked!” He yelled.

Despite his outward confidence and diligence, somewhere deep inside him he had always doubted his own work. But now he had even proved himself wrong. He had reanimated lifeless flesh.

He looked back at the creature, a smile spreading across his face. The creature’s eyes were dilated from the over exposure to stimuli, probably only able to see in blurs of color. But it looked at Arthur not only with the sense of sight, but with a consciousness. Arthur could see a soul inside the creature.

The creature was entirely pale, but blood ran under its skin, reddening it. One of its eyes was a bright blue and the other was a darker blue. Stitches lined its body, across one cheek and another across its neck. Its back had one long stich down the spine. The crystal heart shined through the creature’s sternum and rib cage, brightening the x-shaped stitch across its heart.

Arthur had always been a _theoretical_ scientist, and here he was with physical proof for all his theories. His brain seemed to malfunction for a moment as he forgot all his professional training.

Then, as if this creature was a human who had come into a physician’s office, Arthur checked the creature’s health. Its lungs were taking in air and its heart was beating perfectly. Its eyes were still blown wide from the overdose of stimuli but Arthur knew the pupils would adjust with time. The creature was perfectly healthy, as if this was how the creature had always been.

Arthur unstrapped the creature from the table. The creature didn’t move. It only looked at Arthur with confusion. Arthur had to persuade it with words and motions that it was free to sit up, stand, and walk. It stayed where it was.

There were several things Arthur hadn’t anticipated when he started his research. The first was what would happen to muscle after it was regenerated. Would it need time and effort to gain back its strength? With Gaius the Rat, Arthur had only observed muscle shaking in the beginning but eventually the rat walked with ease. This was when Arthur finally discovered that the creature wasn’t moving not because it didn’t want to, but because it _couldn’t_. Arthur picked up the creature in his arms, letting its head fall onto his shoulder, and called out to Leon. The creature made a noise of disapproval at the loud sound, the first of which he had made. Arthur longed for his notebook to catalog everything his creature did.

Leon appeared in the laboratory and when he saw the creature he blanched with surprise, but he didn’t run away. He helped Arthur from the basement laboratory to the second floor of the house and they set the creature in one of the guest rooms near Arthur’s.

After setting it down on the bed, Arthur meant to go back to his laboratory in order to write down everything that had occurred that night, but the creature made another noise. It was a whine for Arthur to stay.

So Arthur stayed even though he knew that the creature couldn’t see him properly yet.

“I’m right here.” Arthur said, reassuring it with a soft sound and then he placed a hand on the creature’s now warm skin. The creature hummed and closed its eyes. It slept and Arthur told Leon to run down and get his journals so he could document everything.

Leon stared at the creature with the same astonishment that Arthur felt. When Leon returned, Arthur wrote all night, burning the candle down all the way to the base. He concluded his experiment a success, but only due to the heart shaped crystal. It would be impossible for the research to be replicated. As Arthur looked over to the creature, he felt something in his chest that told him he didn’t want anyone to replicate his work.

He named the creature Merlin.

Another thing Arthur had not anticipated when he started his research was what he would do after he created a creature of science and magic. Having Merlin around was almost as time consuming as his work had been. But instead of being away in his laboratory all day, he was in the library teach Merlin or in the dining room eating with Merlin, or in the garden show Merlin all the plants and animals he could.

Merlin took on a childlike delight at the world, one that Arthur had forgotten a long time ago. Arthur forgot what it was like to look at a flower’s beauty and smell its perfume, and be elated at nature’s beauty. The last time he had done something like that he had just finished his formulas and hadn’t stepped outside for over a week.

But Merlin’s mind was not one of a child’s. He was intelligent and often asked questions that took Arthur a moment to answer. Not only that, but Merlin was very aware that he was different than Arthur, Leon, or any other creature naturally born of this earth. He could even perform magic, small tricks of light from his fingers or moving objects from one place to another. It was not something Arthur had engineered, and he decided it was either an after effect of the magic he had put in Merlin or because of the crystal in his chest.

Arthur dreaded that Merlin would hate himself for being different, and yet he never did. Despite Merlin’s constant self-confidence, Arthur often reassured him that he may be different, but also amazing all on his own, which had nothing to do with Arthur’s work.

Arthur wondered if it was conceited to fall in love with something of his own creation. As Arthur saw it, Merlin was not _his_ creature. Arthur may have created Merlin, but he could not have done it without the crystal heart. He was starting to believe that the heart was composed of a human soul because Arthur may have composed Merlin, but he was very much his own person who did not need Arthur after he was taught the ways of the world.

Merlin stayed despite not needing Arthur anymore. Arthur told him that he was free to live his own life, but just like he had on the operating table, Merlin did not leave, except now Merlin was staying of his own free will and not because he wasn’t able to. Arthur rejoiced and hoped that Merlin would come to appreciate him as more than just a creator and teacher, but as a companion and friend.

 “Where ever did you find Mr. Emrys. He is such a delight.” said one of the ladies.

“It’s an unusual story.” Arthur said. “He was lost in a terrible storm near my estate. He was injured and desperately ill. He couldn’t remember a wink of anything. I took him in.”

“How generous of you, Mr. Pendragon” said one lady. “And here we all thought you were devoid of humanity.”

Arthur let them laugh and he joined them, if not only for show. He had put away all his scientific notes a while ago, turning to running the farm on his estate. He was surprised at much he adored it, especially with Merlin at his side. Merlin was studying to become a physician, and _oh_ how Arthur teased him for it. But they both had their teases, ones that no else would ever understand.

“Arthur, take a turn in the garden with me?” Merlin asked, excusing Arthur of the dreadful socializing with pestering ladies.

“Of course.” Arthur nodded to the ladies and walked down the path with his companion.

“Thank _God_.” Arthur whispered, “I thought they might eat me alive. They adore you, of course.”

“If only they knew.” Merlin laughed. “I wouldn’t be here without you or your ‘horrid ways’ as they call it.”

Arthur had returned to society, if not grudgingly. Merlin liked speaking with other people and that was the only reason Arthur put up with garden parties.

“Yes, well it was not all me.” Arthur said as he pressed a hand lightly to Merlin’s chest when they were out of sight of the party. “You are still your own person.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Merlin smiled contentedly.

**Author's Note:**

> The Greek myth of Pygmalion is about a man who falls in love with a sculpture of his own creation. Aphrodite brings the creature to life for Pygmalion and they fall in love.
> 
> “Frankenstein: a Modern Prometheus” is the first science fiction novel which brings up questions of religion and science. Unlike Arthur, Victor Frankenstein leaves his creation and it is lost in a world it does not understand (and doesn’t understand it). The creature always has this nagging feeling of a Creator (who in this case is not God but Doctor Frankenstein). So basically, like usual, I wanted a happy ending for The Creature.
> 
> (I have already written the last two fics, so as much as love prompts, they won't fit in this series).  
> Thanks for reading!


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